Website FAQ

The current website design and platform did not serve UKCP’s many different online audiences as well as it could do, and in some cases not at all. In particular:

• Find A Therapist was confusing and overwhelming for potential clients to use
• Potential students and trainees struggled to find clear information about how to become a UKCP accredited psychotherapist or psychotherapeutic counsellor
• Even though our core aim as an organisation is to promote psychotherapy, the site offered very little accessible content about what psychotherapy is, how it works, how to choose a therapist etc
• UKCP members found it difficult to locate important information and resources on the site
• The website design had become dated, and didn’t adequately reflect UKCP’s reputation for quality and expertise
• UKCP staff had little control over how content was displayed and organised on the site.

Please see our list of new features and improvements below for details, but essentially, we have:

• Redesigned Find A Therapist to make it easier to use for people seeking therapy and so more effective in generating referrals for our members
• Improved site structure and navigation so that visitors can move around the site and find what they need more easily
• Created clear user journeys and expanded the content we offer for the two largest groups of people who come to the site: people seeking therapy and people who are interested in becoming a psychotherapist or psychotherapeutic counsellor
• Made it easier and faster for Colleges and member organisations to update information about their work on the site
• Moved to a more secure and flexible content management system which will give UKCP greater control over how our content is structured and laid out.

• In-depth interviews and usability testing with members of the public both with and without prior experience of therapy
• Survey of members of the public about their needs, expectations and concerns around remote therapy (in response to COVID-19)
• In-depth interviews and usability testing with professional audiences including teachers, social workers, healthcare and HR professionals
• In-depth interviews and usability testing with existing UKCP members
• Survey of journalists, academics, and policy professionals
• ‘MoSCoW’ workshop with College representatives and discussion with member organisation representatives to understand needs and concerns
• Team by team discussions with UKCP staff about stakeholder needs and priorities
• Keyword research to identify common Google search queries used by people seeking therapy or psychotherapy training
• Competitor analysis and design review, reviewing the websites of other organisations and directories in the same sector and further afield.

Our digital partner was Wattle, who were appointed following a tender process at the end of 2019. The project was managed by Content and Engagement Lead (Maternity Cover) Sarah Jackson, and delivered with the support of a Project Team made up of staff from several departments, overseen by project sponsor, CEO Sarah Niblock, and a Steering Group composed of UKCP leadership plus representatives from organisational members and colleges.

Your current profile picture, copy, and links on your existing profile will be recreated on the new website automatically, so you don’t need to do anything.

However, if you’d like to take advantage of some of the new features we’re introducing, you can update your profile now, or any time before or after the site goes live.

You can manage your profile in the same place as usual, in the members log in area. Please see our updated guide to updating your Find A Therapist profile for full instructions.

When moving to a new website with a different structure it's sadly inevitable that some old links will no longer work. To try and minimise disruption we set up redirects for the top 100 pages at which people arrive at the site, but sadly we couldn't catch everything. We're sorry for the inconvenience. 

Almost all of the content from the old UKCP site has been migrated over to the new one, so what you're looking for is probably still here, just in a different place.

Please try using our site search, which you can access by clicking the magnifying glass icon at the top of every page. Or you can try browsing the site using the menus at the top of every page, and on the left hand side of most pages. 

If you're really stuck, email us at website@ukcp.org.uk and we will try to find what you're looking for.

This could be for several reasons:

• We’ve made a lot of changes to how the website works, what it looks like, and how all our content is structured, and this can be disorienting. For example, it may be that something you are looking for was in one place on our old site and we have moved it to a different place, or perhaps it looks different because of the new design. If you are looking for something in particular, please try the site search. If you still can’t find it, please contact website@ukcp.org.uk with exactly what you are looking for and we will try to help.

• The code used to build a website is very complex, and there are always some errors and glitches when a new website launches. These are called ‘bugs’ and we would welcome your help in identifying exactly where and what they are so that we can address them. Please see below for how to do this.

• To help futureproof our new website, it has been designed to work best in the most recent and most common operating systems, web browsers, and mobile devices. However, we’ve tried to make sure it also works well with older systems, browsers and devices wherever possible. If you find the website doesn’t look right, you can let us know the details by following the steps below and we will try to fix the issue. But switching to a different browser, updating your browser, or updating your operating system to the latest version may help as well. Using the most up to date software is important for security as well as ensuring the best browsing experience.

There are always some bugs and glitches when a new website launches and it would really help us if you could let us know if you find something that doesn’t seem to be working as it should.

Please email us at website@ukcp.org.uk with a full description of what’s happening, and a link to the relevant page.

If you can include a screen capture so that we can see exactly what you see, as well as details about whether you’re on a Mac or a PC and what internet browser you’re using, that will help us find out what’s going on more quickly.